Sowerby Bridge to Todmorden 24/07/21

16.8 miles, via, Sowerby, Wood Bottom, Luddenden Foot, Luddenden, Oats Royds Mill, Booth,

 Luddenden Dean, Dry Carr - Slack, Clough Hole, Garnett Edge, Midgeley Moor, Back Clough,

  Low Brown Knoll, High Brown Knoll, Flaight Hill, Robin Delph Flat, Gib Slack, Crimsworth

   Dean, Lumb Bridge, Shackleton Knoll, Rowshaw, Walshaw, Rowshaw Clough, Hebden Dale,

    Gibson Mill, Gibson Wood, Knoll Top, Colden, Colden School, Blackshaw Head, Hippins 

     Clough, Great Rock, Great House Clough, Cross Stone, and Priestwell. 

Having been NIW and Down Country for the week, travelling without walking plans and ending up doing a whole mess of not much as we endured a blast heatwave conditions, we return to the North Country feeling like we ought to get back on the trail as things cool down and gloom over again, as some more mileage needs to be put down among Calderdale's hills and valleys while it's not raining, not least because July needs to be redeemed after that damp spell got it going on completely the wrong foot, and having had too much enforced R'n'R. With a lot of miles planned, we travel early, to alight at Sowerby Bridge at 8.05am, under skies that look like they'll be keeping the sunshine at bay all day, as we start off with the morning chill still hanging heavy as we decline down Station Road, past the builders yard in the coal drops, and the old police station, down to the crossing of the mouth of the Ryburn as it flows under the railway to merge into the Calder, taking a left as we meet the A58 and crossing over West Street by the Sowerby Bridge flat iron to start the ascent to Sowerby village. We're coming this way as the options for low down and westbound routes up the Calder Valley are rather thin on the ground, and so we rise sharply with Quarry Hill, passing the Royal Oak inn and St George's church on the sharp rise up to Fore Lane, which skirts us around White Windows house, and St Peter's Avenue pushes us between the suburban and council estates on the hilltop, giving us a view over the lower Ryburn valley towards Norland Moor,for a change, before we pass the grounds of Ryburn Valley High School, with its old schoolhouse almost concealed in plain sight at the roadside. Arrive at the site of the Victorian village school, across the way from St Peter's church, which shares some of the neo-Classical vintage of its companion downhill, and pass through the old heart of Sowerby village by the shopping parade and the Old Hall, before the turn northwards and downhill comes by the Church Stile inn, taking us down Pinfold Lane as it clings on to the high edge of the Calder Valley, which opens out ahead of us, drawing our attention across the way towards Luddenden Dean, our first target for the day, as it merges in between the high hillsides, west of Halifax and below Midgeley Moor.

Northowram to Mytholmroyd 17/07/21

15 miles, via Lands Head, Upper Shibden Dale, Shibden Head, Ambler Thorn, Raggalds, 

 Soil Hill, Ogden, Ogden Reservoir, Ovenden Moor, Cold Edge, Withins Head, Hunter Hill,

  Wainstalls, Reap Hirst, Peel House, Luddenden, Roebuck Wood, Luddenden Foot, 

   Calder Valley Greenway, and Brearley.

After two consecutive weekends of garbage weather, shedding my walking plans on principle, coupled to the intent to travel away Down Country, seems like a rather foolish course of action once a veritable heatwave washes across the country, offering the hours of sunshine that we'd desired for a scenic walk, albeit attached to a temperature spike that you could probably do without, meaning that the trail is rejoined with hope that the month of July might be redeemed, while dressed in my light summer gear that hasn't been out in three years and loaded with liquids for what could be a very testing day indeed. This time busing out to Northowram goes without a hitch and it's already hot as our feet touch the ground opposite the surgery and across from the end of Hall Lane at 9.35am, so we already know that it's not going to be a rapid sort of day, which means a slightly more leisurely pace will allow a chance to properly see the landscape that we hurried through two weeks ago, seeing how suburbia has butted up to and penetrated the grounds of Northowram Hall, which still hides in there behind the wall and the trees, and how much of the associated estate has endured outside the boundary. Further on, we enter the landscape of fields and farmsteads scattered on the high land that Shibden Dale digs into, with Marsh Hall being by far the most impressive, with its apparent 17th century stylings and vintage, while Land Head almost form the heart of a rural mini-hamlet among the undulations and hillocks that rise around the concealed valley which remains our point of focal interest, to be found down Cave Hill where the view from the Brow Lane corner is as marked a contrast as you could want as the sunshine blazes down. Our traversal is thus resumed, as Blake Hill End Road traces the eastern branch of the valley, past Bleak Hill End farm, before turning back along the valley side with Paddock Road, past its eponymous farm and the only suburban house with an aspirant view in the area, before we join the track of Addersgate Lane, wending its way down the hillside past the farmsteads perched on the dale's brow, passing by Plough Royds, Woodcock and Adders Gate and getting quite the most superlative views of  downstream Shibden Dale, as we go.

Rumination: What is This? I Don't Even... 10/07/21

The Following is For Reference Only.

Every walking year seems to hit a point where my walking resolve starts to crumble, either from internal factors like mental or physical fatigue, or from external reasons like terrible weather, and we've definitely met the latter on those in 2021, but at quite the most unexpected time of year, as while early July can offer have weather that settles into roasting hot or markedly changeable, we have not seen consecutive weekends of awful weather in all of my walking years, having to go back to the infamously recalled year of 2007 with its latter half of constant rain and greyness for something comparable. Weather projections for this walking day had suggested we were due a day of sunshine and showers, that hard to read forecast that could bring weather that is sunny or damp, but when we rose in Morley we were greeted with fog, hanging low on the ground and not having been predicted to occur at any point in the week, which you wouldn't expect to endure at this time of year, so the walking resolve was steeled to go out and make the best of the mediocre conditions. The mental resolution for the day then started getting its beating right at the outset as we set out to hop on the #425 bus at Morley Town Hall, only to find it inexplicably cancelled and thus a half hour wait had to pass until the next service was due, putting me behind schedule and adding to the frustration that comes with a long enough wait of 20+ minutes for the #681 service at Bradford bus station, where it's painfully visible that the persistent damp gloom has not lifted even as we roll past 9.20am. The Halifax via Shelf bus is boarded, to ride us back up onto the Calder - Aire upland, and there's no sign of any improvement coming in the air, and indeed things look like they're worsening as we roll up at Odsal Top, as the skies darken and a sudden downpour comes on as we ride through Shelf, giving me an impromptu dousing as it runs in through the open bus window, and as we approach Northowram, conditions outside look no better than they did when I quit the path a week ago, and I stay firmly in my seat as my stop comes and goes a 10am, only moving on as we roll into the Halifax bus station terminus.

Brighouse to Northowram 03/07/21

6 miles, via Owler Ings, Brookfoot, Slead Syke Wood bottom, Sutcliffe Wood bottom, 

 Hipperholme Mill, Mytholme bridge, Shibden Hall Park (Mereside), Stump Cross, Salterlee, 

  Lane Ends, and Shibden Dale Brow. 

You can probably guess from the headline that this was not a walking trip that went as planned, and I should also have known that I was flick fate on the nose when I thought that I could take on the challenge posed by a day of constant Summer rain, but sometimes it seems that I really think I know better and that the weather conditions can easily be overcome even when taking on a trip from the banks of the Calder up to the watershed ridge and back down again, taking a long route around Halifax and taking in some of the Calderdale terrain missed on my long trips northbound. So, this object lesson in watching things come unstuck starts at Brighouse station at 8.50am, already dressed against the weather that doesn't take much time to come on as we take a snaking route across the town to the northwest, heading to Brighouse bridge via Gooder Lane and Cliffe Road, and then approaching the Navigation channel and  Anchor Bridge via the stub of Bridge Street, before we head out of town via Owler Ings Road and Bank Street, varying it us just so things can be kept interesting as we match old trajectories. There's already a persistent light drizzle in the air as we rise up to the side of the A6025 Elland Road, again, where we'll carry on northwesterly through the tree lined bank above the canal and the Calder on the way down to Brookfoot, by no means an original route choice but the only practical way to get to this low corner of the town, with its terraces stacked on the hillside above, its old Co-op store now occupied by a funeral director and the Red Rooster inn looking likes its back in business after seeming to have had regular occasions of being permanently shut. Our new route starts here, not up through the Brookfoot Business Park on the site of the old dye works, despite it offering a hard surface to walk on, instead joining the rough path at the side of Red Beck, which forms the valley that we're intending to traverse, possibly the most concealed of all the branches of the Calder, with our initial steps being taken up to the edge of the woodland and fields above the stream, pressing on past the industrial plant, with the vegetation having been very recently cut back so we're not getting an additional soaking from below as we rise on, up the dirt track to meet Wood Bottom Road.